When a venerable tree dies in Connecticut, whether it makes a sound or not, chances are good that the Esselstyn brothers hear about it. The call might come from a homeowner, whose children used to swing from its boughs, or from a school whose leafy landmark has passed away, or from a tree warden. New Haven is home to a forest of some 32,000 trees, and as many as 600 pass on each year; many of these are salvaged and repurposed by Ted and Zeb Esselstyn.

Since 2009 this duo, co-founders of City Bench in Higganum, have painstakingly transformed dearly departed timber – ash, tulip, maple, oak, walnut, what have you – into fine furniture including tables, headboards, credenzas, lecterns, and (of course) benches. Often their client wants to memorialize a beloved tree in a new form and each piece of furniture comes with a "birth certificate" detailing the wood's origin and life story.

City Bench's handiwork can be found all over the state (and beyond), from a Stamford apartment building to Mystic Seaport, from the New Britain Museum of American Art to New Haven – in Yale President Peter Salovey's dining room and soon in the Common Ground High School.

They have a showroom in Higganum (in the old Scovil factory) and New Haven rents them a historic sheep barn where they render the city's deceased trees. With an unending supply of timber, the brothers have branched out into selling unfinished slabs to designers, builders and DIY homeowners.

The process is time-consuming. The tree has to be cut, moved, milled, dried, and then hand-worked. The charm of the final result is that the wood is allowed to express itself, with its unique shape and even its imperfections often driving the design. Each elegant piece embodies the character of its ancestor, arguably the soul as well.